


Optics

by ConStar24



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Glasses, I was reading a modern au where Zuko wore glasses, and I couldn't get it out of my head, i don't remember the fic unfortunately, if it was you please say hi!, someone please make fan art, we deserve adorable zuko with spectacles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-10
Updated: 2020-10-10
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:00:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,397
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26936287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ConStar24/pseuds/ConStar24
Summary: No one knows the Fire Lord wears glasses. It's one of his most closely held secrets.
Relationships: Katara/Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 111





	Optics

It made sense that no one knew that Fire Lord Zuko wore glasses. He spent years exiled without them and the banished prince of the Fire Nation couldn't just walk into just any optician’s shop and ask for a pair of extremely custom glasses. So the prince did without like he did with many things on his long and winding road towards his true path of honor.

Now, though, he was back at the palace. He was the Fire Lord. And there were just _so_ many documents to read. Papers to sign. All in the dim light of his office late at night. So he finally had someone make him a new pair.

He hated them though. Before, his father had broken several pairs because he said it made him look weak. (His mother would replace them and kiss both his eyelids before putting them on his face.) Azula, of course, made terrible fun of him and Ty Lee giggled at the story of the six-eyed dragon. Even Mai would take them off his face when they were kissing, tossing them to the side in disgust. And this was all before he needed a much stronger prescription in his left eye.

When Zuko finally got a new pair after weeks of migraines due to eyestrain, he did his best to hide them. He only wore them for reading, usually late at night, so in the year since he's been crowned, no one had seen him in his spectacles, not even Katara.

Until one night.

It was late. He'd had them on for hours, going through the latest draft of the reparations contract, so he forgot they were even on his face when there was a knock at his door. Fatigued and wanting whoever it was to go away, he muttered, "come in," without thinking.

In walked his girlfriend, clearly happy to have found him. Until she saw the glasses at least. Zuko grimaced at the way her eyes bugged open, a smile starting to form on her face. He groaned and threw the glasses on his desk, and buried his head in his arms.

"What?" Katara said with laughter in her voice.

"What did you come here for?" He cleared his throat. He didn't want to talk to her like he didn't want her there. He wanted her everywhere. "I mean, what did you need?" he asked in a softer voice.

"Zuuuko, look at me." He refused. She got closer and rested her hand on his arm. "Come on."

He finally looked up and squinted at her. Even his good eye was feeling blurry and tired after the many hours of reading. She was smiling at him softly, with the hint of a smirk sitting in the corner of her mouth.

"Get it over with then," he said dejectedly. Might as well get it out of the way now, he thought.

"What are you talking about?" She sat on the corner of his desk. She smelled like rain.

"You know, the jokes. How weird they look. How they make my eyes, especially the scar, look even more distorted. Maybe if we get this over with, I can get over—"

"Excuse me?" She wouldn't even let him finish. She had one hand on her hip, the other held hanging in the air at her own question. "You— You really thought I'd made fun of you for having glasses?" One of her eyebrows had risen dangerously high.

Okay, well, when she said it out loud...

"Well, I guess the reason I came here was a mistake after all if you thought I would ever—"

"No! No. I just— it's all I've ever gotten when I've worn them." He looked away towards the window that looked out onto a dark courtyard. "But no, of course, I don't think you'd make fun of me, Katara. I just hate having to wear them. And you looked so shocked when you walked in."

"Well yes, I’ve never seen you in them. Of course, I’m shocked. But I was going to say you looked cute in them."

"You were?"

"I came here because I wanted to talk to you. We haven't really gotten a chance to be alone. I wanted to talk about that."

His head snapped back to her, his heart in his throat, glasses nearly forgotten. "You wanted to talk..."

"Nothing is wrong, Zuko," she said with a soft laugh. "We just keep putting off spending any real-time together these last couple of months and I want us to give it a better try. Of course, it'll be hard and we'll have to be intentional about making time—"

She was cut off as Zuko lunged out of his chair to kiss her. She allowed it for a moment, before pulling back.

"Wait, what?" Zuko couldn't move, frozen in front of her in an awkward hunched position. Had he misunderstood?

She turned her nose away and crossed her arms. "Hmph. I don't kiss liars."

Zuko couldn't even come up with words for his confusion, so it came out as a strained sound.

"You've been hiding this secret from me this whole time,” she said with a light slap to his arm. “I've sat in this very office with you and read trade agreements ‘til dawn and you never put them on?" She leaned over to pick up his glasses from where he'd tossed them earlier. "Put them on."

"Katara, come on," he said, straightening and running his hand through his hair. "They're not attractive. They don't exactly enhance the mood."

She wordlessly pressed the glasses forward to his hands. _Agni_ , she was stubborn.

With a sigh, he put them on his face. He waved his hands and said, "happy now?" before quickly reaching to take them off.

"No. Keep them on." She looked at him with the smile he'd seen when she walked in and he squirmed uncomfortably. "You really are so cute."

"Huh? Katara, there's nothing cute about these. They're huge, especially this one," he gestured to the particularly thick lens over his left eye. "They just get in the way. I only need them for reading anyway."

"So we've sat here and you’ve hidden these from me because you thought I would make fun of you? Because of vanity? Because of fear? When you know I don’t care about all that?" There went that hand back on her hip again.

"Uhm, chalk it up to childhood trauma?" He said with a sheepish look.

She stared at him in silence for a while before cusping his face with her hands, dragging him back to the awkward hunched position from his attempt to kiss her. She stared a little while longer. Then she sighed in a way Zuko hope meant happiness. Before she pulled his face to hers and kissed him on the mouth.

Zuko had missed this. She was right in that they hadn't been able to spend much romantic time together in the past few weeks. Katara's hands never left his face, she softly caressed his cheeks, even the scarred one, and her fingers kept nudging up against the legs of his glasses. Soon, they started to fog up.

They pulled apart, heaving and laughing just a little at their clear excitement about being able to be alone like this once again. Katara's hands remained on his face, cupping his cheeks.

"I've never done that with my glasses on before." He could feel his cheeks warming hotly under her hands.

"Zuko, I like your glasses. I love you. I'd kiss you with them, I'd kiss you without them."

Zuko smiled. "I love you too."

They kissed again, Zuko sitting back in his chair and Katara landing sideways in his lap. He broke away for a moment and looked her in the eyes.

"Okay so, I'm glad you accept me for all of who I am, but they're actually not that comfortable for, uh, extended kissing, so I'm going to take them off."

Katara laughed and pulled them off his face, folding the legs and placing them gently on his desk. Then her hands were back in his face, caressing where they'd dug into the bridge of his nose and the scar tissue on his sideburn.

"Whatever is most comfortable. But Zuko..."

"Hmm?"

"If you ever keep a ridiculous secret like that from me again, you will not be rewarded with kisses."

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first Zutara/ATLA fanfic! I joined the fandom earlier this year and have read so much fic, but didn't expect to write my own. But the thought of Zuko in glasses wouldn't leave my head, so here we are. Shout out to YanaHallows and FullofWrackspurts for being my Zutara fandom of three.


End file.
